Knowra Jōmon period Jōmon period A prehistoric period in Japan, beginning around 14,000 BCE and ending around 300 BCE, marked by hunter-gatherer communities and distinctive cord-marked pottery.
Jōmon pottery : Ceramics made in prehistoric Japan during the Jōmon period, often decorated with impressions resembling cord marks. Cord-impressed vessels give the period its name and provide its most recognizable archaeological evidence.
Jōmon subsistence : The ways Jōmon communities secured food through gathering, hunting, fishing, and resource storage. Seasonal use of varied foods supported communities without agriculture as their main food base.
Sannai-Maruyama Site : A large Jōmon settlement in Aomori Prefecture, occupied especially during the Middle Jōmon period. Its long-lived settlement remains complicate assumptions that hunter-gatherers were highly mobile.
Japanese Paleolithic : The prehistoric era in the Japanese archipelago before pottery-making Jōmon societies emerged. Late Paleolithic communities provide the archaeological background to Jōmon lifeways.
Incipient agriculture : The early cultivation or management of plants before farming becomes a community's dominant subsistence system. Jōmon plant use raises questions about how to distinguish resource management from agriculture.
Hunter-gatherer : A person or society that obtains food by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild resources. Jōmon communities relied primarily on wild foods rather than farming.
Acorn processing : The preparation of acorns to remove bitterness and make them suitable for eating. Archaeological evidence indicates that some Jōmon groups processed nuts as stored food.
Ōyu Stone Circles : Two large prehistoric stone-circle complexes in Akita Prefecture, generally dated to the Late Jōmon period. Their deliberate construction offers evidence for communal ceremonial activity.
Holocene : The current geological epoch, beginning about 11,700 years ago after the last major glacial period. Much of Jōmon history unfolded as Holocene warming transformed Japanese ecosystems.
Complex hunter-gatherers : Foraging societies with features such as durable settlements, storage, social differentiation, or large-scale communal practices. Jōmon evidence shows that settled life and elaborate material culture did not require farming.
Show all 26